YOUR CART

What is a Community? As we enter our new unit, COMMUNITIES, students have begun brainstorming a variety of communities that we know about and discussed how they are alike and different. Through comparing various communities, we decided that successful communities have 7 things - rules, leaders, living things, jobs, beliefs, goals and a place. We learned that each of us belong to a variety of communities, so we started exploring how we fit into them and what they are. So far, the students have learned that our classroom is a community and that they are also a part of a family community. During our study of families, students learned that all families are unique and special and not all families look the same. Each student created a family glyph to show who lives in their house and were able to talk to share about their family with their friends. As we dissected our classroom community, we talked about the 7 things a community needs and determined if we had them in our classroom community. This led us to create a classroom job chart to hold us accountable for completing jobs throughout the day. During this unit, the students will explore what it means to be a member of a community and how communities can be successful. In the upcoming weeks, students will explore our school community, city community, state community and country community. We can't wait to learn more about our place in the world!

Literacy

Our Guided Reading groups are up and running! It is so exciting to see the students growing as readers!This time of our day is when each student receives targeted instruction on his/her appropriate level from the teachers in small groups while the rest of the students are engaged in independent literacy activities from our Daily Five (Six) Choices.Please have your child read their Guided Reading book to you at home often and praise and encourage their progress! Then, RETURN IT IMMEDIATELY TO THEIR FOLDER SO THAT WE WILL HAVE IT TO READ THE NEXT DAY IN CLASS!SIGHT WORDSSight Words should be sent back to school as soon as your child has memorized his/her list. Please work on them at home OFTEN! Everyone is moving along nicely and it shows in our ability to READ!!!The Daily Five (Six in our room) includes:1. Read to Self- we practice reading books on our own reading level.2. Read to Someone- we read books to or with a buddy.3. Work on Writing- we write stories with text and illustrations of our choosing.4. Listen to Reading- stories are read aloud to us on through a discman or leap reader.5. Work with Words- we practice making and writing sight and other words.6. Computers - we explore phonics and reading skills on an appropriate website such as starfall, abcmouse or abcya.

MATHSince returning from break the students have begun something new, Calendar Binders! We keep track of the weather, seasons, months, days of the week and more in our own individual binders. This practices a variety of math skills and is a favorite time of the day! We love getting to

Our focus in math has been 3-D shapes and reviewing teen numbers (and higher numbers!). We are all becoming experts on 3D shapes! We can names them, find them in our environment and find 2D shapes within the 3D shapes. Check and see if we can find any at home or in our community!

BUDDIES When we returned in January we got to work with OUR BUDDIES again. With a new year, came NEW BUDDIES! While we still love our previous buddies and value the connection we have built, it's nice to get to spend time with someone new! Students were introduced to their new buddies and spent time discussing each others family communities and getting to know each other. We also created family glyphs about their families like we had done with our families. This helped us to understand and get to know our new buddies and build up our buddy community!